Hydrogeology, Ecohydrology, and Environmental Geochemistry

We currently have support available for new Research Assistants in Hydrogeology and Aqueous Geochemistry!

USF has a long-standing commitment to excellence in hydrogeology. Our graduate students have gone on to successful careers in hydrogeology in industry and government. Many of our former graduate students work for the US Geological Survey, Southwest Florida Water Management District and a myriad of groundwater companies. USF truly has a network for moving our graduate students into successful and challenging hydrogeology professional careers. Conversely, we are committed to providing these companies and organizations with the best hydrogeologists available.

Currently, four faculty are strongly involved in the hydrogeology program. Dr. Mark Stewart runs a research program involving groundwater hydrogeology in a number of areas in Florida, using shallow boreholes and geophysical techniques. Dr. Stewart also teaches numerical methods in hydrogeology. Dr. Len Vacher specializes in the groundwater hydrogeology of carbonate islands and teaches Physical Principles of Groundwater Flow. Dr. Mark Rains is an Ecohydrologist, working on surface water and shallow groundwater interactions and their roles in determining ecosystem structure and function. Dr. Thomas Pichler specializes in the geochemistry of Arsenic and related Heavy Metals. Dr. Pichler and his students are deeply involved in a variety of projects identifying and tracking Arsenic in natural and contaminated groundwater systems. These projects include an NSF-funded, multi-disciplinary, multi- university research project in Biocomplexity, with implications that range from element cycling in coral reefs to evolutionary genetics to the origin of life on earth.

Current graduate student projects in Hydrogeology and Environmental Geochemistry include:

• Roy Price (PhD candidate): Geochemistry of Shallow marine hydrothermal vents in Papua New Guinea, with emphasis on biogeochemical cycling of arsenic and other elements introduced into the coral reef ecosystem by hydrothermal venting. This project is part of an NSF Biocomplexity project. Roy has also done field work on shallow marine hydrothermal vents in Dominica and Baja, and hopes to dive in the Aleutians soon.
• Greg Jones (PhD candidate) is studying Arsenic distribution in the upper Floridian Aquifer and its relation to aquifer storage and recovery
• Joe Hughes (PhD candidate) has developed a 3D multi-species (heat and solute) version of the groundwater modeling code SUTRA. He is using this code to examine large-scale circulation of the Florida Platform (collaborative with Ward Sanford, USGS, Reston).
• Olesya Lazareva (Ph.D. Candidate) came to USF from Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. She is currently researching detailed geochemical and mineralogical analyses of the naturally occurring arsenic throughout the phosphorite-rich Hawthorn Group, Southwestern Florida.
• Bruce LaFrenz (PhD candidate) is using variable density numerical models to investigate the flux of water and solutes in and through mangrove and near-shore marine environments.
• Chris Reich (PhD candidate) is investigating the roles played by submarine groundwater discharge in controlling dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Christina Stringer (PhD candidate) is investigating the roles played by hydrological processes in maintaining ecosystem structure and function in coastal river, mangrove, and near-shore marine environments.
• Mike Kittridge (MS student) is investigating evapotranspiration from clay storage areas in the phosphate mining district in west-central Florida.
• Kathryn Murphy (MS student) is investigating the hydrological connectivity between clay storage areas and surface water bodies, the surficial aquifer, and the Floridan aquifer in the phosphate mining district in west-central Florida.